


Take Notice

by serendipitous_rambles



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, I need some love letter exchanging please, I've seen it about 20 times already, That take notice scene in ep 1 really ended me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 12:56:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitous_rambles/pseuds/serendipitous_rambles
Summary: Anne and Gilbert catch each other at the take notice board.





	Take Notice

**Author's Note:**

> This was just an idea in my head from the whole "take notice" scene and I needed to blurt it out or I wouldn't stop thinking about it

Anne couldn't focus in class, her gaze kept shifting over towards Gilbert. Since the Easter fayre a few weeks ago, things had changed. He had saved her from dancing with Charlie - again - but this time it had been different.

When they'd danced, everyone else seemed to have faded away. It was everything she'd read about in books, how nothing truly mattered but each other. The fact that it was Gilbert... she hadn't wanted to admit. But he had a way of making her feel that she just couldn't explain, and yet she never wanted to stop feeling like that.

Even Ruby had mentioned the way Gilbert had looked at Anne when dancing, the other girl finally resigning to the fact that Gilbert would never reciprocate her feelings and in a surprising turn of events, dancing with Charlie instead.

There were only a few weeks left of school, and soon most of the class would be off to Queens'. But Anne couldn't leave things unsaid, not anymore. She had made a promise to herself to not hold anything back now that she was almost an adult. Besides, if she had been greatly mislead by his charming looks and stupid dreamy eyes, she could easily avoid him at Queens'. There would be so many new people that she could go for days without having to confront him certainly.

So, after class once everyone had gone, she snuck around to the “take notice” board. 

She was startled when she turned the corner and saw Gilbert stood at the board before her.

"Oh, I…" she was about to run away, ready to give up. But he caught sight of her before she could escape.

"Anne?" He looked just as startled, quickly dropping his hand from the board. Had he been…? No, surely not.

They both froze, staring at each other with the same terrified expression, until it melted into a laugh.

"You were looking at the board?" Anne slowly approached him, hiding her note behind her back.

"I was uh," he awkwardly adjusted his hat, pointing to the board, "just curious to see if anyone had... posted."

"I thought you weren't a "take notice" type of guy?" She smiled coming to stand beside him and looking at the board.

Most of the notes had been taken down, people now beginning to officially court each other now that school was almost over.

But there was one that stuck out, written in a very familiar scrawl.

_ Anne Shirley Cuthbert is a passionate individual... _

She raised her hand, brushing against the note, a small smile breaking out as she did so.

When she turned to face Gilbert, he was looking at her with something she'd never seen before...fear? Normally he was so confident, so mature, but now he looked so innocent, so vulnerable.

“I was wrong before...about how I’d know when the right one comes along. Because it took me years to realise…It’s you. It’s always been you.”

Her breath caught in her throat, it was not usual for her to become speechless, but this boy always had this effect on her. She had had this dramatic speech prepared, but now she’d been caught off guard. It was then that her scrambled brain remembered the reason she’d came. The note. 

“Hold out your hand, and close your eyes.” she whispered.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously, but he complied.

She reached out, placing the note in his palm and folding his hand over it, her hand lingering atop his for a moment. As he opened his eyes, he smiled at the little note in his hand.

As he read it, his eyes grew softer, the fear melting away again. When he looked up, his eyes met hers.

She was seeing it now,  _ really _ seeing it. The fondness at which he looked at her. But he hadn't changed the way he looked at her, it was still the same lopsided smile he had always given her, which made her think that perhaps that "romance" in his eyes had always been there. 

"I have something else for you too." He reached into his pocket without breaking eye contact, revealing another note. "This one seemed too... special to post publicly. It deserves to be read by you, and  _ only  _ you."

In the note, Gilbert had poured out his heart. How he had been in love with her since she cracked her slate over his head. But the line that almost brought her to tears was " _ There would never be anyone for me but you." _

It was far more romantic than she'd ever thought he was capable of, and far too romantic for anyone else to see. She was glad he hadn't posted that one, that she got to keep it all to herself, for her eyes only (and she supposed Gilbert's). 

She held the note to her chest. That note would stay folded in the safety of the little jewelry box she'd been given by Marilla and Matthew one Christmas - where all her most precious memories and items belonged. 

She didn't know it quite yet, but in the years to come she would still take out that little note and read it by firelight when Gilbert would be at medical school far from her. A way to keep a piece of him with her whenever they were apart, counting down the days until they would no longer have to say goodnight.

But right now, here she was stood in front of the boy she loved...who loved her back. And that was all she needed to know about the future.

“May I walk you home?” he held out his arm and she happily accepted it with both her arms wrapping around it. They walked home arm in arm, Anne leaning her head on his shoulder, the first time of many walks down the so aptly named lovers’ lane.


End file.
